Gregory Haerr (born September 30, 1957) is an American entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of
Century Software, a provider of
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
based
terminal emulation
A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...
software. Haerr founded the company in 1982, after having moved from his hometown of
La Jolla to
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
in 1981. Haerr is the oldest of seven siblings.
Haerr earned a B.A. in Computer Science from
UCSD
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
in 1980, with minors in Accounting and Music Performance. After moving to Salt Lake City, he consulted for various firms writing custom software. He started Century Software after writing a small file transfer utility for a friend.
Land Holding and Development
In 1994, Haerr started building a land banking development business using the profits from Century Software. Today, these companies own land and developments in Utah, Washington, and Idaho. TP Development, Inc. is the developer of Anderson Ranch Phases 5, 6, and 7 in Grantsville, Utah.
Microwindows
Haerr's experience with Windows and
UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
operating systems branched out to the newer, free Linux operating system. In 1999, he wrote a free graphical windowing system called
Microwindows
In computing, Nano-X is a windowing system which is full featured enough to be used on a Personal Computer, PC, an embedded system or a personal digital assistant, PDA. It is an Open Source project aimed at bringing the features of modern graphic ...
that could be used on small, embedded Linux systems. This system, because of its small size and free cost, enabled many others to build their own applications in the emerging PDA and mobile marketplace.
Secret Millionaire
In December 2008, Haerr joined the cast of the FOX reality series
Secret Millionaire in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
, where he gave away $150,000 of his own money to deserving people and organizations, including extreme wheelchair athlete
Aaron Fotheringham
Aaron Fotheringham is an extreme wheelchair athlete who performs tricks adapted from skateboarding and BMX. He competes in the Vegas Am Jam series in skate park competitions, usually against BMX riders.
Fotheringham calls his activity " WCMX" ...
.
Fox’s ‘Secret Millionaire’ gifts local wheelchair athlete $20k
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References
External links
Personal websiteMicrowindows.org website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haerr, Gregory
American computer businesspeople
1957 births
Living people